Author: ari

In this episode, Odious decides not to enter the KCRW radio contest because the theme is “Down for Whatever” and he’s offended by such an idea. As a result everyone on his show is down for whatever because that’s how his life goes.

Special guests are Marvin Milquetoast, Janet Plattsburgh, and Boomer Radcliffe-Ortiz. The Grim Reaper makes an appearance and tries to provide some sense. And the Cockroach Quartet plays their new hit, aptly named, “Down for Whatever.”

This is the Hour of Misery: Pride Edition. Odious and the Cockroach Quartet perform an original song called I May Not Have a Whole Lotta Pride, But Luckily I Got No Shame, after which they receive unsolicited feedback from a British critic named Frederick, voiced by the horribly talented Joey Jenkins.

Sylvia the Spider Monkey, a professional juggler and CPA takes time away from her busy schedule collecting dollars on the 3rd Street Promenade and preparing people’s taxes to thoroughly destroy the studio in a pique of anger.

The Hootch Booze ladies give in to spiritual bankruptcy caused by total investment in online reputation and social media status.

And Odious discovers that the phone still works when he gets a call from a Greek mythological creature (also voiced by alarmingly creative Joey Jenkins) who just moved to L.A. from Ancient Greece and is trying to adjust to the feelings of isolation and dubious self worth that such a move would cause.

In this episode, Odious has just returned from an endurance art tour of Koreatown and feels the need to spend quality time with his listeners. Listeners call in and Odious offers top shelf life coach advice. The Grim Reaper shows up with a new message from Shirley (There IS a God, and her name is Shirley.). The results are in, the metrics are assessed and human beings are in big effing trouble. The Grim Reaper sings a song on Shirley’s behalf about it.

We are truly blessed to have The Falling Rearendas (Formerly known as The Flying Rearendas) on our show. Sophia and Guiseppi Rearenda had sixteen children to be used as free acrobatic labor and it really has paid off. There are only six of the Rearendas left, but they keep trying and falling and will eventually go extinct one of these lucky days!

In this episode Scuttles, Skitters, Creepsy, and Cottentail of the Cockroach Quartet worry that Odious is ill and they try to revive him with green jello — a trick that Creepsy learned while living at the Kaiser Hospital cafeteria.

Odious helps his listeners with their Thanksgiving holiday celebrations by having guest Celebrity Chef Tom Tofurkis on the show answering food preparation questions. Unfortunately, Odious send Tom into an existential crisis by pointing out the conflict of interest that Tom is perpetuating by being a turkey who cooks other turkeys.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addresses the nation on this special episode! She shows her commitment to the cause of glass ceiling shattering by defining what characteristics a winning female presidential candidate would need to posses. Granted it’s a list of impossibilities, but let’s not shy away from challenges!

Hillary wows us with a song for the ages. And can she scat!?! Yes, she can!

The Hootch Booze ladies endure the election with the help of Hootch.

And we meet the first entity to declare its run for 2020 and it’s a piece of wheat toast. Wheat Toast feels liberated by Donald Trump’s win and declares that anyone or anything are now free to take on any position they want. Odious is encouraged to become a surgeon with no medical background. Why not? No experience needed, after all.

In this episode, Odious is going through some kind of “thing” and ponders humanity’s existence. Luckily, he has help sorting through his confusing thoughts with guest star philosophers Arthur Schopenhauer and Epictetus!

Schopenhauer’s wise and pessimistic words inspire Odious to write a musical in his honor, and in this episode we are blessed to hear the first song from Schopenhauer: The Musical! As per The Cockroach Quartet’s new contract, I must credit them as composers and performers on this track.

Epictetus time travels from Nicopolis 135 A.D. to Los Angeles 2016 A.D. to perform a Vaudeville juggling act, illustrating his philosophy of how to live. He then joins Odious in a duet about his very helpful teachings on how to achieve tranquility (ataraxia). Spoiler alert: stop listening to the opinions of assholes! Again, as per The Cockroach Quartet’s new contract, I must credit them as composers and performers on this track. I hope they’re happy.

Odious has new-found respect for the Grim Reaper, who chimes in with some sage advice stemming from his professional experience with death. He and Odious almost become friends, but luckily he becomes annoying again in the nick of time.

And the Hootch Booze women are having their own existential awakening, but this one can be attributed to that most well thought out and plausible book that came out some years ago, The Secret. They, of course, add their own alcoholic flair to it and end up becoming unstuck with that delicious beverage, Hootch Booze.

In this week’s episode (co-written by Roderick Cumming!) we learn the inspiring life story of our favorite musical cockroach, Scuttles, the leader of The Cockroach Quartet! Odious retells (Again. Yawn.) the story about the time he was asked to perform at Sinatra’s house in Palm Springs in the 50s. And the all-lady musical therapy group, The Bush Administration, performs their latest therapeutic hit “I Just Keep Getting Richer (While You Get Poorer)”.

The Grim Reaper stops by and we learn that while being an incorporeal spirit, he also has some sort of material body which has human needs. This incongruity really bothers Odious.

Last week when Odious was doing a performance at the Fluff and Fold Laundromat, there was another great performer on the bill and so he asked her to be on the show. Her name is “Corporal Emma Terial“ and her act is a performative, theoretical, and deterministic demonstration of military marching styles from around the world.

We will hear a romantic original song called You Will Always Be an Angel to Me by The Cockroach Quartet that will make you weep with emotion.

Our Hooch Booze ladies our having another existential crisis that is easily remedied. And we finish up with a class Vaudeville act — spoon bending by way of the mind — performed by Odious.

In this episode, Odious deals (poorly) with his growing collection of age-related ailments by sharing his Vaudeville history with his listeners (of which there are none). He takes a musical journey from his first act as a single cell, to his birth on the Vaudeville stage, to his collaborations with big Vaudeville starts like W.C. Fields, Harry Houdini, and Josephine Baker.

Later, he celebrates beautiful acts of human kindness with a song about all the wars his great country participated in during his long, miserable career.

Then we have a special animal act — an acrobatic pigeon troop, and finally we are joined by Miriam Yoder, the premier Amish Vaudevillian in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

In this episode Odious tries to recover from a terrible evening with Mimsy Gladrobber, a woman with an academically-gifted son who is trying to get Odious to marry her. He is then visited by a shyster of a businessman who speaks modern self-help jargonese to try to get Odious to buy his philosophical snake oil. Another existential crisis is sorted out via a Hootch Booze commercial. Disturbing music about the recently discovered vomit of a deceased cat is provided by a strange band called Posthumous Vomit. And finally, Claudia the Great (voted Most Accurate Fortune-Teller in the Tri-State Area 2006 by the Daily News) tells the fortune of an unfortunate listener. Music provided by the Cockroach Quartet.